FROM MONTENEGRO

(click on images to enlarge)

Answering a Mountain Call: Getting There...

(suggest you read a preamble to this story, Preparation...)

MONTENEGRO, May 9, 2008 - I woke up this morning with a sense of anticipation as well as trepidation. Anticipation, because this is it.  This is what this trip is about out.  I was about to do what I have never done before - perform a shamanic ceremony of thanks and gratitude to my home mountain in her bosom.  Trepidation - because I have never done anything like it before.  As it turns out, it was am amazing day, one for the ages, a May 9 I will never forget.

The Djurdjevic Mtn is in northern Montenegro (right map).  I was starting all the way down on the coast.  I figured it would take me at least four hours to get there, given the mountainous terrain and narrow roads one can expect along the way.  I underestimated both the time and the effort.  Still, it was great fun.  I drove up to the mountains along the blue route on the map (left), and returned the next day along the red one.  Just in case you're keeping track...

I got up around 6AM without an alarm, and had breakfast and all my ducks in order and ready to leave by about 7:30AM. 

The morning mist hung lazily in the air above the ocean as I passed Petrovac (left two shots), and also clung to the ground as I approached Lake Skadar (right two shots).

Somewhere on the way down toward the lake from the coastal mountains, I took a passing shot of it (left).  I realized that the mountains on the other side of the lake are probably Albania, as the border runs through Skadar Lake.  The lake was very calm when I took a few more pictures from its shores (two middle shots).  Somewhere around there, a train engine rattled by, jolting me out of my daydreams.  Later on, when I stood on the tracks of the Belgrade-Bar line, from where I took those lake pictures, I kept looking over my shoulders not wanting to be surprised by a train again.  Well, at least not before I got to my mountain. :-)

The leftmost shot was that of a little fishing village that seemed to cling to the hill over the lake.  Not long afterward, I entered Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro.  The city used to be called Titograd at a time Tito was around.  I was thinking about how some of these communist dictators, like Stalin and Lenin, all had some cities named after them as if to make themselves immortal.  Alas, all it took was a change of regime, and their immortality bit the dust.  It was in Podgorica that I also encountered the first of several unusual scenes on the road - a horse-drawn carriage slowing the traffic on a major road (two left photos)

I was glad to leave Podgorica.  For some reason, that city never did much for me.  Whenever I passed through it before, it was always, hot, dusty and congested.  Or maybe it was because of its former name.  Who knows... I was just starting to enjoy the mountain vistas there were opening up northwest of Podgorica, when I was signaled to pull over by a cop at roadside checkpoint.  I had no idea what I did wrong.  I didn't think I was speeding.  I was in third gear and the speed limit on open roads is 80 km/h, as far as I know.  But I had been warned by friends before that in Montenegro, police can stop you for no reason at all.  Just because they can.  And there are a lot of them who can and do.  They ask for documents and pretend to be checking things out as a form of intimidation, my friends told me.

Well, this cop was pleasant enough when he asked for my documents.

"What have I done?"

"Speeding," he replied.

"Speeding? I was in third gear.  How could I be speeding?"

"We'll see about that.  We'll have a word with the radar operator and find out what he saw."  Then he talked to someone on his walkie-talkie.  "Yup," he said contentedly.  "You were speeding.  Doing 65 km/h in a 40 km/h zone."

"A 40 km/h speed zone on an open road?" I said, not having to feign amazement (40 km/h is about 25 mph).

He asked me to get out of the car.  We walked back to the pared police car where his partner was sitting. He looked grim.  I've seen the type before.  Humor won't get you anywhere with guys like that.  So changed my tack and appealed to his sense of humanity and compassion. I told him where I was headed and why. "so why spoil my day?" I concluded.

He smiled.  "A minor miracle," I thought.  Of course, he had to give me a sermon about how I deserved to be hauled off to the court and plead my case before a judge.  But then she handed me my documents.  "Well, you said why not be human, so here you go. Have a nice day!'

I could not believe my luck.  Then I smiled.  The only other time I had ever talked my way out of a ticket was on April 7 in Scottsdale, when another cop was about to write me up for a $400-parking ticket (disabled spot).  I had just finished talking to St. George a.k.a. Al-Khadir (A-K) on my way to the store from yoga, asking him to help my friend who was traveling that night through the Heathrow Terminal 5 get through without any hassles (she did).  And since this entire trip has been engineered by A-K, I figured he was making sure I don't get too cocky, but also not derailed from my mission.

"Thank you, St. George, A-K," I said as I drove off, smiling ear-to-ear.

As I was getting higher up in to the mountains, I noticed that the spring was only just starting here (middle left).  Look at the early buds on those trees in the middle.  But the mountain vistas that were starting to open up were just spectacular.  Several times, I felt tears welling up in my eyes in the presence of such beauty and the spirit that I felt inside connecting me to them.  And then there were also once in a while pretty creaks rushing down the mountain gorges that it took them millions of years to carve up. The meaning of time in human terms seemed to pale relative to such works of nature.

And then just as you thought the mountains could not get more spectacular than that, they did (left). Somebody had wanted to keep those views forever.  So this long-diseased man had himself buried in the middle of an open field, facing the great mountains in the background. If my figuring of the old inscription in the stone is correct, that cross/monument was erected in 1219.  Been there a while, you could say...

And then I entered the Durmitor National Park.  Durmitor is one of the tallest mountains in Montenegro (I think the second tallest), but certainly is the most spectacular.  Take a look above...

It was also very pastoral.  Which is why I was not surprised to my way blocked by a herd of sheep.  Years ago, during a similar herding experience in Scotland, my younger daughter, who had just received a warm wool sweater as a gift in Edinborough, exclaimed enthusiastically, "thank you for my sweater, S'ip" (she could not quite make the "sh" sound as yet).  :-)  Thought you may also like to see some typical old mountain huts in which people used to live (and maybe some still do? - right photo).

Looking at my map, I expected at this stage to arrive in Zabljak, which is a well known tourist and ski resort on Mt. Durmitor.  Up until this stage, the road was actually pretty terrible, so when I came to a T-intersection with what looked like a more important highway, I was heartened.  But there were no road signs.  So I guessed and turned right.

After a while, the road was starting to descend.  I thought that was unusual since I knew that Zabljak was close to the Durmitor mountaintop.  And then something strange happened.

I looked at the mountain you can see in the left shot, and then at the valley below it (middle left), and I knew!  I knew that was the Djurdjevic Mtn.  I do not know how I knew.  I just knew.  I did not look at a map or receive any other information.  I felt it as if I had been here before.  My heartbeat quickened.  I knew I had arrived home. 

Later on, I was able to confirm that fact with the help of signs and a map.  Indeed, that was the Djurdjevic Tara river valley in the middle left shot.  And the high plateau above it was a part of the Djurdjevic Mtn.  A couple of more switchbacks down, I actually saw the Djurdjevic Mtn. peak for the first time (two right shots).  I was so excited.  I kept trying to position my camera for a shot of myself, but it kept tipping over.  Finally, I managed to come up with a couple of reasonable pictures to mark the occasion.

After a couple of minutes, I found myself at the familiar spot, next to the famous bridge over Djurdjevic Tara with my mountain in the background (left). I had been there twice before, in 1990 and in 1994, both times arriving from two different directions from the way I got there now.

TO CONTINUE, click on... "Communing with My Mountain"

CLICK HERE to Montenegro DAY 3, Part 2/3...

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